COMBAT ARTISTS AND THE FEELINGS THEY CAPTURE
The following images were sketched by a combat photographer that accompanied the 25 Infantry Division as it participated in the first Cambodian invasion in an area called The Parrots Beak
The first image is a LRRP patrol as it moves out into the bush. The logo marker on the lower right is the insignia of the 25th Infantry Division. It is a lightening slash through a crest. Many of us refer to it as the Electric Strawberry because it also looked like a bolt of lightening splitting open a strawberry
The images may be in black and white but after having spent over a year in Vietnam I can attest that in my mind the images rapidly flesh out into colors and sounds that were an every day occurrence in Vietnam
The next image is a Chinook or as we called it "Shithook". I can still hear those engines screaming and the crew scrambling to load and unload as fast as possible. This was for two reasons. The first was to get the supplies off and the second one was that if they hung around to long they became a big fat ground target.
The next image is just after an insertion with the troops heading , both West into Cambodia and the setting sun. The guns are up on the door gunner positions so they were not expecting it to be a cake walk.
The next image is again of a LRP or "Long Range Patrol" moving out ahead of the main force. The near man has an M-79 Bloop Gun and the far man has an M-16.
The next picture is of virtually any base camp in "The Nam" It always had a high tower to observe the perimeter and as a location point for incoming aircraft. It also became an aiming point for an NVA / VC gunners. It was surrounded by rows of concertina wire that usually had beer cans with stones inside to make noise if "Charles" tried to slip through the wire. It "sort of worked" sometime.
The next image is the "Little Bird" or OH-6A Cayuse. The configuration varied from unit to unit. In my own unit , D troop 3/5 Cav, we flew with a pilot and an observer while others used a pilot and co-pilot and the observer sat in the back. This observer was often called a "Torque".
